For recent news, publications and reports, visit the Banúlacht Update.  
 

About Banúlacht

Banúlacht is a feminist organisation and part of a global women’s movement and, as such, is committed to political action. The name ‘Banúlacht’ is derived from the Irish word for women, bean(pronounced 'ban'), and means ‘of women’, or ‘related to women’. Our vision is of a world where transformed relations of power continually challenge norms and structures of injustice and create new ways of relating based on respect, solidarity and justice for all at personal, local and global levels.

Banúlacht believes in justice and equality for all women and men and in relationships of solidarity between women North and South. Our approach is founded in the recognition that women are active agents of change in Ireland and globally.

Banúlacht works with women’s community based organisations, women’s networks and other women’s groups in Ireland. We aim to facilitate a participant centred education process which facilitates greater understanding of gender, development and human rights in local and global contexts. Our courses use social analysis to make links between the personal and political dimensions of women’s lives and between the experiences of women in Ireland and those of Southern women’s groups.

Through our work, we aim to build solidarity between women in Ireland and women in the South, and to work with women’s groups to bring a global and a human rights perspective to their local work.

Banúlacht Conferences

Banúlacht conferences are unique events in Ireland. They bring together women from diverse backgrounds and sectors—community development, community education, women’s groups and networks, national women’s organisations, NGOs, state agencies and academia—to focus on feminist perspectives on local and global issues, such as human rights, development, trade and leadership. Banúlacht conferences aim to celebrate activism and link local and global aspects of the women’s movement and feminist activism. They are spaces for women to learn, to gain inspiration and energy, to celebrate and have fun, to renew women’s inspiration and activism. The conferences combine presentations by inspiring key-note speakers from Ireland and the South with creative workshops, drama, music and poetry.

“Banúlacht International Women’s Day Conference was a great lift for me in my aspiration for justice, equality and education for all women. This conference really has given me the opportunity to see a diversity of women from grassroots, national and global levels and discover how we work in harmony in so many different ways in our efforts to highlight the reality of women’s lives.”

—Participant at the 2007 Women’s Day conference

Development Education

Banúlacht’s development education explores issues such as poverty, alienation, disadvantage and injustice through a global lens and from a gender perspective. We see development education as a process based on the ideals of collective empowerment for social change and the belief in the potential of people to be effective agents of change in addressing their own needs and shaping their own futures. Banúlacht works within the women’s sector to facilitate analysis of global relations and interdependence. Our development education work is grounded in an analysis of gender and power, and aims to facilitate participants to develop critical skills in order both to identify and critique systems which disempower women, and to develop and highlight alternatives. All courses incorporate local and global aspects of issues covered.

Banúlacht Training Courses and Workshops

Gender and Development courses

Banúlacht carries out workshops and short courses with women’s organisations in Ireland. These courses aim to develop the capacity of participants make links between the situations and experiences of women in Ireland and women in the global South, and to engage in lobbying and advocacy in relation to local and global policies affecting women in Ireland and worldwide. We have worked extensively with organisations in the community sector, Equality for Women Measure projects and Women's Networks and Community Development Projects in particular. Courses typically involve topics and approaches such as:

  • Gender Analysis
     
  • Social Analysis
     
  • Women and Work
     
  • Women and Power
     
  • Women and Care
     
  • Women’s Human Rights

Training courses can be designed for different groups of women in community development, whether as participants on courses or in leadership and decision making roles in the voluntary, community and development sectors.

Looking at the Economy through Women’s Eyes

This is a programme focusing on women and the economy. The course involves:

  • Exploring women’s roles in the economy, in particular women’s unpaid work in the ‘Care Economy’
     
  • Facilitating participants analysis of the Irish economy and the global forces that shape it
     
  • Exploring economic growth: When economists say the economy is growing, what do they mean? What is growing and what is being lost?
     
  • Learning about the unequal impacts of trade and other economic policy on women and men globally
     
  • Raising awareness of the Irish government’s commitments under international human rights agreements and how women can use human rights in their local policy and campaigning work

A development education resource based on our training process, entitled Looking at the Economy through Women’s Eyes: a facilitator’s guide for economic literacy (2004) is available to purchase from Banúlacht.

Linking Women in Ireland and the Global South through Exchange and Learning

Banúlacht aims to build solidarity and understanding of global development issues through linking with women's organisations in the global South that share our aims. We have strong links with the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) and the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA). In 2002 we organised an exchange visit by a group of Irish women to CAFRA women's groups in the Caribbean region. In September 2007, a group of women from Ireland participated in an exchange with the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme. The visit built on the visits to Ireland by key TGNP staff and provided an opportunity for women in Ireland and Tanzania to exchange experiences and strategies in the context of development and women's human rights. The next exchange visit to Tanzania will be held in September 2008. See the website and the Gender and Development Bulletin, or contact the office for details.

Policy work on Women’s Human Rights

At the heart of Banúlacht’s work is the link between research, policy and training. While awareness raising and confidence-building are valuable in their own right, our ultimate goal is to provide the tools for groups to use in lobbying to bring about change and work towards gender equality. We contribute to wider debate on gender and development, trade and human rights by disseminating policy and awareness raising material, by engaging with the media and by participating in conferences and other fora. We promote, debate and raise awareness of international human rights frameworks as strategies both to provide concrete tools and forums for organising, and to catalyse lobbying by the women's sector for the creation of mechanisms for greater local, national, regional and international accountability.

Banúlacht has participated in the following UN and other intergovernmental fora:

  • Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
     
  • Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation
     
  • The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
     
  • The UN Economic Commission for Europe
     
  • The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
     
  • The UN Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 1995
     
  • The International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 1994

Gender and Development Bulletin

Banúlacht’s Gender and Development Bulletin aims to raise awareness and promote debate on gender, development and human rights from a feminist perspective. Each issue features comment and analysis of women’s issues, updates on international events, articles and case studies from women’s groups in Ireland and in the South, and updates on Banúlacht’s work. The most recent issues of the Bulletin are available for download from the website in full colour and text only versions. Also available are Banúlacht's Gender and Development Briefings: Gender and the World Trade Organisation (2005) and Gender and the Millennium Development Goals (2006).

Membership of Banúlacht

Membership is open to both individual women and to women’s organisations. Members include women’s community development organisations, groups working on violence against women, solidarity organisations, and individual feminist activists, academics and women interested in global solidarity. Membership applications can be downloaded from the website. For more information, contact us.

Website

Banúlacht's website address is: http://www.banulacht.ie. The website includes all of Banúlacht policy documents and publications, including our Feminist Principles and anti-Racist Policy. There are also links to websites of other feminist and development organisations worldwide.

Funders

Banúlacht's work is funded by the Development Education Unit of Irish Aid (Irish government Department of Foreign Affairs), and the Irish development NGOs, Concern and Trócaire.

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